


Not Your Fucking Captain

by Crave



Category: Captain America (Movies), Pitch Black (2000)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Child Death, M/M, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Violence, Science Fiction, Sex In A Cave
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-26 22:33:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15010877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crave/pseuds/Crave
Summary: His suit had a captain’s insignia, Bucky noted, the stylised wing curved across his shoulder. That this corn-fed baby was even captaining a ship was laughable and Bucky had an irrational urge to protect him, and an equally strong urge to fuck the guy up a little, maybe make him cry.Huh. He didn't usually go for guys





	1. Gotta Kill A Few People

**Author's Note:**

> Massive thanks to Rohkeutta, you are a rock and I am an extremely disorganised sea.
> 
> Also big thanks to Kat, who beta read this thing like a champion and can remember what I wrote better than I ever could.
> 
> Special mention to LisaMott9 for brainstorming and reminding me about the actual source material.

[My wonderful artist Rohkeutta](http://rohkeutta.tumblr.com/post/175142668324/my-first-art-for-capreversebb-2018-picked-up-by) 

**Bucky**

_Jack: Where the hell can I get eyes like that?_ _  
_ _Richard B. Riddick: Gotta kill a few people._

It had been a long time, he thought, though it had felt like no time at all. Johns leaning over him through the frosted glass, manic, twitchy. Bucky twisting against his restraints as the cold came seeping up. The haze settling over him. His vision swimming.

Then awake and trapped in the fire and the screaming of the engines and the smoke clawing its way in through the cracks in his cryo tank, into his mask, trying to choke him out. Reminded him of the first night he’d been jumped in juvie.

Back then he was a skinny kid and still getting picked up on the regular for petty shit. Once he’d moved onto more serious time, he’d known to avoid the ones that smiled. And then Zola had shined his eyes and given him a new arm, and no one had gotten the drop on him in a long time. Not till Johns.

The crash had weakened the straps that held him down enough that his metal arm could break them. Bucky was grateful his goggles had been left on, as he crawled out of the wreckage and into the sunlight.

He took off, not minding his direction. If Johns had survived, he'd never let his paycheck go free. Johns looked at Bucky and saw his next hit. His next thousand hits, probably. Bucky had never paid much attention to the bounty on his head. A mistake. Turned out there were people desperate enough to chase after a ghost when the price got high enough.

Outside the air felt thin through the mask; so hot and dry it stung in his lungs, which were already messed up from the smoke. Bucky had no idea if anyone else had made it out if the crash. He hoped Johns had burned to ash, but he didn't much care either way for the others. Pilot had to be some kind of idiot to crash the thing in the first place.

The landscape outside the ship was covered with enormous, bleached-white bones. Bucky picked his way over them, the rib cages towering over his head like cathedral arches. Nothing living, though, no shrubs or insects, just bones and rocks and sand. The light was so bright it seemed to come from all directions at once and made everything look flat and unreal, painted flat with no shadows or shades. Bucky could barely see his own shadow.

There was some kind of rock wall ahead, and he headed for it, looking for any kind of shelter from the heat. He spotted the cave maybe six feet above ground level, a hollowed space in the wall of rock. He scrambled up into the cave and ducked out of the sunlight. He tugged off his welding goggles and let his shined eyes adjust to the dark. The light outside had stung his modified eyes and he was glad to get out of it. Too many fucking suns on whatever planet they'd crashed on, that was for damned sure.

It was blessedly cool in the cave. Bucky was sweating like a pig, itching to take his Stillsuit off and press himself against the cold cave walls, but the suit recycled his sweat. If he took it off, he'd dehydrate in no time. Instead, he sipped from the water tube that ran through the suit and tried to think.

His vision in the cave was better than in sunlight. Zola had made sure of that. Everything had a slight purple-grey tinge to it; colours would never be what they had been; he had trouble spotting things that weren’t moving _and_ it had cost him 20 menthol KOOLs plus a month of suck jobs, but he'd made certain nothing could ever get the jump on him in the dark again. It made it all the more galling when the thing attacked.

He barely had time to turn before it launched itself at him, claws raking through the rock inches from Bucky's face. He ducked under it and almost made the mistake of backing further into the cave before his eyes caught movement back there. The creature came at him again.

Bucky grabbed at it. Its skin was rubbery and strange. He managed to grab hold of a wing. It shrieked in pain, collapsing on the floor. Bucky dashed to the edge of the cave and threw himself onto the sand, rolled, and sprang back up to his feet. The sun was blinding. He could hear shrieking.

He fumbled for his goggles and didn’t find them. Fuck. Fuck. He scrabbled around in the sand, the bright sun blistering his eyes. Tears streamed down his cheeks and pooled at the bottom of his mask.

Bucky took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to get his hands to search faster through the sand. There was movement in the corner of his eye and he scrambled away from it.

He stood and squared his shoulders. The thing screamed and Bucky saw a grey blob diving towards him. He drew back his metal fist and struck as hard as he could at whatever  he could see of it. There was a crunch and a pitiful squeak.

Bucky found his goggles hanging from a rock near the cave entrance. He pulled them on and ran his hand through his hair, which was so damp with sweat he probably looked like he'd just been swimming.

He crouched down by the weird alien thing. Its head was diamond-shaped and stretched out at the corners.  It’s mouth was filled with rows of needle-like teeth. It had wings and a forked tail and only one set of limbs, ending in claws like a set of throwing knives. It smelled horrendous, the smell so bad it made Bucky gag. No chance it was good for meat. He'd rather eat the slop in prison, and a good chunk of that had probably been recycled prisoners.

Of course he'd ended up on the one planet in the universe populated by flesh-eating nightmare dragons. He needed to get off this planet asap. He wondered if there were any other crew members. It was looking like the shipwreck might be the only place with shade that wasn't full of monsters. Except Johns, maybe.

And if anyone was left, Bucky shouldn't have much trouble getting them to put the ship back together. So, that was the plan. Get back to the ship. If Johns was the only one left, Bucky would kill him. If anyone else was alive, he'd get them to help fix the ship and then take off. If the ship was too fucked to function, he'd come up with a new plan. It was never a good idea to think that far ahead.

Heading back the way he'd come, sweating, drinking the filtered sweat from the tube in his Stillsuit but dehydrating anyway.

He heard voices. He paused and ducked behind a pile of bones. The first voice was Johns, and he sounded a little vague. Not long since he last shot up, Bucky thought, but not so long that he wasn't thinking about the next time. The other voice sounded righteously pissed off.

“You're an officer of the law,” the voice was saying, “you have to act like it. Those people depend on you. There are children-”

Bucky suddenly wanted to see this guy. The one who had fallen for Johns’ police officer line but was using it to rip him a new one.

Getting closer, ducking down behind a sand dune, he could see that the two men were standing in the shadow of the burned-out ship. This was where they’d put the bodies of the ones that hadn't survived the crash. There were drag marks in the sand where they'd pulled them. Probably keeping them away from the kids.

Johns was leaning back against the hull and some hench-ass motherfucker was towering over him - getting right up in his space the way Bucky would have done, before slipping a knife between Johns’ ribs.

When he wasn't getting high or strapping prisoners into cryo tanks, Johns usually looked like an all-American hero, but next to the new guy he looked washed out and sick.

The guy who was chewing Johns out had hair like wheat and skin like fresh milk. Something in the set of his mouth, the way he held his shoulders, made him seem younger than he probably was. The beard did nothing for him. The sun had already burned his nose and the tops of his ears. He seemed surreal, untrue; it was stupid for someone who looked like that to be out here in the first place.

His suit had a captain’s insignia, Bucky noted, the stylised wing curved across his shoulder. That this corn-fed baby was even captaining a ship was laughable and Bucky had an irrational urge to protect him, and an equally strong urge to fuck the guy up a little, maybe make him cry.

Huh. He didn't usually go for guys. But it made sense, Bucky supposed, most of the women he went for freaked him out a little, and although this guy was definitely barking up the wrong tree lecturing Johns, it was compelling somehow. Blondie was really laying into Johns about how they all needed to work together, that Johns needed to step up and be a better man.

Bucky didn't give a rat’s ass about people. People didn't give a damn about him so it was only fair. But the secondhand lecture was genuine, that was for sure: the captain believed the bullshit he was spouting. And that was annoying as hell, but it was a little endearing too.

Bucky had never really considered right and wrong. There was what you did to stay alive, which changed on a regular basis and included a broad spectrum of activities from murder, looting and arson, to letting the hit man of a big time gang fuck you in the ass. Anything else was just passing time.

But the captain seemed to have some pretty clear ideas about good and bad. Though where he got them from, Bucky had no idea. Maybe he was some kind of religious nut? Bucky had met more than his share of self-righteous god-freaks in prison.

“Rogers,” Johns said, “I know what I'm doing. I swear, I'm not gonna leave these guys to die.”

So that was the captain's name.

“All right,” Rogers said, “But if I catch you trying to sneak off again I'm not going to cover for you.”

Johns nodded.

Bucky backed away before either of them could spot him over the dune. Johns had made it. The captain, Rogers, had made it, and clearly some of the others. Some kids, apparently. Bucky made a wide circle around the camp, looking for signs of the survivors and eventually spotted them standing in the sand, uncovered, unprotected. Civilians were always a mixed bag.

Four of them wore turbans: an older guy and three teenage boys. They were keeping close together and Bucky guessed they'd been travelling together on the ship. There was a pilgrimage route to New Mecca through this section of space, Bucky knew. There was a guy, brown-skinned and with grey hair. There was a woman with a mess of black curls and a low-cut top, a guy with glasses, and a kid with a shaved head who looked maybe twelve.

Bucky watched them as they stood around in the desert, talking, ambling around a little, wasting all their water. He and Steve were the only ones with Stillsuits, but Bucky spotted that the black-haired woman had a conversion tube. It would filter the air and collect water, which was useful in a pinch. It wasn't a lot, and you'd sweat it out faster than it could make it, but Bucky was still a little impressed that she'd thought to keep it on her. She seemed like a survivor, and Bucky had respect for those.

Bucky circled the group carefully, keeping out of sight behind piles of ancient bones and bits of wreckage from the ship, taking note of the best places to take cover, keeping his sight lines clear out of habit.

Rogers stayed where he was and Bucky Johns joined the people cluster which meant they had no real perimeter. Bucky managed to get pretty close. Closer than he'd meant to, really, too surprised by his own success to turn back. Before he knew it, he was inside the ship’s wreckage again. The cockpit was surprisingly well put together. There was a kind of screen that had torn away and when he crawled towards it he discovered he was standing right behind Steve.

Steve was crouched low over one of the corpses that had been dragged out of sight.

* * *

**Steve**

_Hassan: Captain? Captain?!_ _  
_ _Carolyn Fry: I'm not your fucking captain._

Steve stared down at the body of Carolyn Fry. Her blonde hair was matted with dried blood. Her skin was impossibly white and her wounds were dark, almost black.

Steve didn't have the words to put his thoughts together. It was like his brain couldn't let him wrap his head around it.

The whole thing was impossible, was meant to be impossible. Passing through a comet’s tail on autopilot was unheard of. This planet had three suns. Steve had counted them. He'd never seen anything like it, never even heard of such a thing being possible.

And Fry. That was the most impossible thing. She was more of a captain than Steve had been and full of fire.

They'd flown enough cargo missions before, a couple of them even with prisoners - though none as dangerous as Barnes. He'd never seen someone strapped into their cryo chamber like that before.

Barnes was the only person outside of Arrakis that Steve had ever seen in a Stillsuit. That felt… significant. There weren't many ways to get those and Steve knew from experience that the locals didn't give them away for free. Probably he'd pulled it off a corpse.

Steve sifted through his options. It seemed unlikely that Barnes was dead. All prisoners were survivors; you survived or you died. Then there was the policeman, the sick-looking one. Johns. He was creepy, the way he was always trying to get Steve alone, the way his eyes lit up when he talked about Barnes’ crimes, like he was impressed.

Sharon and her partner Zeke were tough enough to pull their weight, at least. Paris, the antiques dealer, was a fool and Imam Hassan was an unknown… but the children… they made everything hurt. Jack, the boy with the shaved head, was especially painful. At least the other three had their Imam to turn to. Jack had no one. Or he had Steve, which was probably worse.

They needed a plan. They needed to save their energy. Sharon had her tube but Steve was the only one with any way to recycle water and it would be idiotic to wear himself out.

Doubly stupid, then, that when Steve heard shouting over the dunes he ran like hell towards it.

“Zeke?” A pause. Then louder. “Zeke!”

As Steve got closer he could see that Sharon had her hands cupped around her mouth. She was shouting with her whole body, nearly bent double with it.

Steve almost leapt out of his skin when he felt something touch his shoulder but when he turned it was only Jack.

“Zeke’s gone,” Jack said. “Johns thinks Barnes took him.”

Of course he did. Someone could have farted and Johns would have pinned it on Barnes.

* * *

  **Bucky**

_Johns: Doctors decide who lives and dies on the battlefield. It's called Triage._

_Riddick: Kept calling it murder when I did it._

Bucky watched Steve take off running and decided to hang back. If they were going to blame whatever was happening on him, it wouldn't help to be seen. He waited until Steve was out of sight then slipped out to look at whoever it was that Steve had been hovering over.

She had been beautiful, Bucky could see. And a bit of a rebel, based on her kickass utility belt. He stared down at her torn suit and wished, pointlessly, that she had made it. Something caught his eye on her sleeve and he realised she was wearing a pilot’s badge. Interesting.

Bucky could hear shouting. The rational decision to stay out of the way fought with his curiosity and lost. Before he knew what he was doing he was following the noise.

The woman in the tight top had climbed to the top of a dune. She was yelling fit to burst. Her hair hovered around her in a dark black cloud. Bucky watched her pace around in a tight circle. Rogers was watching too, Bucky could see. His pose was rigid - hands clenched into fists at his sides. His head was bowed slightly.

The older man in the turban had a hand on Rogers’ shoulder and was talking intently.

Bucky heard the click of a gun and threw himself onto the sand, whirling away from the sound.

It was the third time that day that he'd been trapped and it burned sharp and hot in his gut. Fuck this planet, fuck aliens, fuck himself for letting any of it happen, and most of all fuck Johns, who was staring down the barrel of his gun, thumb twitching on the trigger. If Johns didn't shoot him right there in front of Rogers, four children, and god himself then Bucky was taking it as divine permission to shank the guy.

“Back down, Johns,” Rogers said.

“Seriously? He's a killer, Rogers!”

“Doesn't mean he killed Zeke.”

The black haired woman was watching him carefully.

“Did you kill Zeke?” she asked.

“I've killed plenty of people,” Bucky said, “but nobody since I set foot on this hellhole planet. Had my own shit to do.”

“You're not gonna believe that,” Johns said. His eyes flicked to Rogers and Bucky was about to take that slim chance to run, but then Rogers took a step closer to Bucky.

“I can't let you kill him with no proof,” Rogers said. And he put a hand on Bucky’s flesh and blood shoulder and Bucky felt it come over him like the urge to be sick. Unstoppable. Making him shiver. Making his stomach twist. Rogers’ fingers pressing warm and living, the heat of him bleeding through the suit.

Bucky had the force down the urge to panic and the urge to pin Rogers against the wrecked wall of the ship and suck him off. Jesus.

“What more proof could you need? He's a murderer!” Johns said.

 

“We don't know that he's even dead,” Rogers said. “If he's not with Barnes he could be anywhere.”

The smart thing would be to run but Rogers kept his hand on Bucky’s shoulder as he spoke.

“I'm looking for him,” the woman with black hair said. “If we don't-” she stopped. “If we don't.” She locked eyes with Bucky.

The woman took off and Johns backed down a little, lowering his gun but not holstering it.

Glasses man coughed awkwardly. “Session adjourned,” he said.

Steve let go and Bucky stayed where he was, against all logical sense, while the others poked around and shouted a lot.

They didn't find Zeke.

They did find a house.

* * *

  **Steve**

_Riddick: He died fast, and if we have any choice about it, that's the way we should all go out._

The place was thick with dust but Steve could feel that there had been humans here, and not just aliens. The house could have looked like anything but it looked like a child’s drawing. The two corrugated sides of the roof met squarely in the centre and door sat right under that with the slatted windows spaced evenly apart like half-shut eyes.

Barnes took stock of the whole building: roof, windows, door, in a single glance and then he kept on walking right through the front door. Steve could see Barnes slipping the welding goggles off his face. Johns went too, then everyone else. 

“Zeke?” Sharon called. Her voice rasped over the name.

It was too dark to see much of anything inside so Steve prised open the windows. There was a noise from behind him and Steve turned, half expecting to see Barnes, but instead there were lights.

“Woah!” Jack said.

On a table in the centre of the room something began to spin. It had a short central pole with long metal arms of different lengths. The longest arms had lights on them. Two lights at one end, one at the other. The shorter arms had little spheres on them.

There was a whirring sound. The lights flickered slightly and then the whole thing began to spin.

“It's a solar system!” Paris said. He stepped forward, pushing his glasses up his nose to study it. 

Now that someone had said it, it was obvious. The lights must be the three suns Steve had spotted earlier, so the spheres were probably planets. Steve could see that one of the spheres even had a flat strip of metal poking out from its middle to represent rings.

Steve looked up from the group to see what Barnes was making of the whole thing but the man was gone. Steve took a quick head count. One of the pilgrim boys was missing too.

“Ali?” the Imam called. When there was no response he called again. “Ali!”

Steve could hear a muffled thump and he ran through a long kitchen toward it, shoving chairs and benches aside, terrified that he was going to find Barnes with his hands around the boy’s throat but what he found instead was a locked door. The house extended further back than Steve had thought and the thumping noise was coming from inside a back room.

“Help me!” Ali was shouting from the inside. “Let me out!”

“Who’s in there with you?” Steve asked, bracing himself against the door.

Steve heard a sound like something scraping across the floor.

“Stand back!”

Steve threw himself against the door. He drew back and did it again. He kicked at the hinges.

He heard the child screaming and he kicked again and again until at last the door gave way.

The thing that swept out as the door fell open was fast and grey and had wings. It's huge claws came down and would have sliced him in two, except there was a sharp clanging sound and the thing shrieked and Barnes was suddenly there - standing between Steve and the monster like St George facing off against the dragon.

Steve backed out of range and scanned the hall for something to help Barnes with. He spotted a long, wide telescope sitting on some kind of stand. He grabbed it tight, brandishing it like a club.

The alien dived at Barnes and Steve ran forward, beating at its wing with the telescope. That threw the creature off track enough for Barnes to reach up, arm gleaming silver in the faint light, to twist the monster under him and kill it with a single blow.

The two of them stood, panting, over the body of the alien. Steve couldn't bring himself to look at the boy. Steve wanted to cling to Barnes like a child and sob, but he settled for awkwardly patting his shoulder for the second time that day.

“What the fuck is happening?” Sharon called from the front of the house.

“Don't come down here!” Steve called back.

Steve heard footsteps and Sharon burst into the room, panting.

“Zeke?” she said. She didn't sound frantic, just resigned.

Steve heard her draw in a deep, slow breath when she caught sight of them.

“What the hell?” she said.

“It killed Ali. Attacked me as soon as I tried to get into the room,” Steve said.

“Shit,” Sharon said.

Steve could hear more people getting close.

“We need to stop the kids from coming in here,” Steve said.

“I'll hold them off,” Sharon said, backing out of the room.

Barnes helped Steve close the broken door to stop Ali’s friends finding him like that.

“You think this is what got Zeke?” Steve asked Barnes.

“Yeah probably,” Barnes said. “One of those things attacked me earlier, they like the dark.”

“Good thing this planet has three suns,” Steve said.

“Yeah, if we don't fry first.”

Steve heard more shouting from the front of the house and set off, telescope in hand and Barnes trailing after him.

They burst into the room, gasping for breath, but there weren't any more aliens. Just a lot of confused people standing around the solar system model.

“I think that's why this place is here,” Paris was saying to the Imam, “to study it!”

“Study what?” Steve asked.

“The eclipse!” Paris said. “I think this was some kind of scientific observatory.”

There was no reason to worry. An eclipse had to be a pretty rare event on a planet like this.

_They like the dark._

They were rare enough on earth. Steve had never seen one. And building an observatory just to study it meant it had to be unique.

_They like the dark._

So far they'd encountered only three of the creatures, at most, and that was assuming that one of these things had definitely taken Zeke.

_They like the dark._

Steve watched Paris set the model solar system up and came and stood at the angle one of the children was excitedly pointing at and he watched the planets swing round and round until they lined up just so.

The planet in the centre was almost invisible in the room, even with the light coming through the slatted windows. Hidden from the suns at both sides.

“I get the impression from the model,” the Imam said, “The two planets are moving as one, and there could be a lasting darkness.”

Barnes didn't stay for the show. His goggles were already on when he pushed past Johns and opened the door.

“Where are you going?” Johns sneered at Barnes as he passed.

Steve told himself he was just imagining that it was less bright outside than it had been earlier.

“Ah shit,” Barnes said. And Steve didn't even need to step outside to know what they'd find.

* * *

  **Bucky**

_Caroline: Come on, Riddick. There's gotta be some part of you that wants to rejoin the human race._

_Riddick: Truthfully, I wouldn't know how._

If Paris was right, and the eclipse was coming, then most of them were dead already. Those things in the caves would be crawling all over the place. No way they could stay the way they were, they'd be sitting targets.

“We need a way out,” Rogers was saying. “We can't stay here.”

“What way?” Johns said. “And why not? It's the only shelter we've found.”

“What about the caves?” Steve said.

“Caves are crawling with those winged motherfuckers,” Bucky called over his shoulder as he stared into the sky.

Bucky could see things getting clearer. The stinging in his eyes was fading. That meant darkness. Soon.

“Those… what?” Paris asked.

Bucky let Steve deal with telling the others what had happened and went to explore. It took him a minute to notice he was being followed. It was the kid with the shaved head. The boy had pulled what looked like swimming goggles over his eyes in an imitation of Bucky's thicker lenses, though who knew where he'd gotten them.

Behind the house he found a water pump with clean water. He drank until his belly felt swollen with it and then retreated a little way, letting the boy drink.

There was a shed of sorts behind the house too, made half of corrugated steel and tarpaulin. Bucky had learned his lesson, and was slow to open the door of the shed, but once he'd scanned for anything moving he stepped into the space.

The ceiling sagged in places, hiding whole sections, but Bucky knew a spaceship when he saw one.

The kid clearly did too because he came out of hiding to look at it.

“Holy shit,” the kid said. There was a slight squeak to his voice when he swore and reminded Bucky of Becca a little. She'd always followed Bucky around, trying to sound older than she was, trying to fit in with Bucky's friends. Back then it had been a pain in the ass having her around all the time trying to get him to pay attention to her.

Bucky rubbed his hand over the boy’s fuzzy bald head and clapped him on the back.

“Save the cursing for when you're older,” Bucky said, “When you've really got something to swear about.”

“What could be worse than this?” the boy gestured to the bleak wasteland of dry bones and the fading light. He had a point, but Bucky wasn't about to show it.

“Kid, when I was your age I wondered the exact same thing.”

“Johns says you're a murderer.”

“Does he now,” Bucky raised both eyebrows.

“And are you?” the kid sounded thrilled at the idea.

“Of course.”


	2. The light moves forward

**Bucky**

_Riddick: All you people are so scared of me. Most days, I take that as a compliment._

Bucky loved the night sky. No more bright sun to blind him. It made him feel powerful, unstoppable almost, to be running around in the dark when no one else could see. He'd felt as though the night were a part of him. Now the darkening sky was clearer than ever to Bucky's eyes and he wished to god it wasn't.

Bucky and the kid headed back to the group. The man in the turban was hugging two of the boys. They had their arms around each other.

“We found a ship,” Bucky told them, “And water.”

There was a mad dash outside as everyone scrambled to the fountain, gulping the water frantically, getting it in their hair and dripping down their clothes.

“The eclipse,” Rogers said, coming back over to Bucky. Water dripped down his chin and he wiped it on his sleeve.

Bucky gave a short nod. “Yeah,” he said.

“We need to tell them,” Steve said.

Bucky didn’t argue. So far playing nice was having its benefits. Fresh water, instead of the stuff his Stillsuit recycled, and shade that wasn't full of flesh-eating aliens. The people, Johns definitely excluded, were nice but naïve.

“Paris P. Ogilvie. Antiquities dealer. Entrepreneur,” the man with glasses said, extending his hand.

“James Buchanan Barnes. Escaped convict. Murderer.”

There was a pause.

The man in the turban introduced himself as Abu and the boys he was with as Hassan and Suleuman. The two boys were nearly shaking with fear. They barely reacted to their names.

“Sharon,” the woman said. She didn't shake Bucky's hand or unfold her arms.

“I'm Jack,” said the boy with the shaved head.

Johns didn't say anything and that was probably for the better.

“Steve,” Rogers said. His face gave everything away: his nervousness, his stubbornness.

“I go by Bucky,” Bucky said, talking to the group but mostly to Rogers. “No doubt Johns has told you all about me. I don't know what he said and I don’t care. Here’s what I do care about. We’ve been out here less than ten minutes and it's already getting darker. I’ve seen what's out there our only hope is to get off this planet asap.”

“Then let's go see the ship,” Steve said. His lip curved up at the corner, almost like a smile, and Bucky grit his teeth against the urge to smile back.

Steve pronounced the ship perfect. No damage at all. Then he opened it up and pronounced it empty of fuel cells.

“We can use the cells from our ship,” Steve said.

“Will they work?” Johns asked.

“Won't know till we try it,” Steve said.

Steve and Johns got into an argument about whether all of them should go back to the wreck and look for fuel or just some of them.

Bucky knew he should probably clear up Johns’ lies, let Steve know Johns was a junkie bounty hunter, not a police officer. But it made Bucky seem more intimidating, and some part of him wanted to keep that going.

Another part wanted to keep something from Steve just because. So that there'd be another lie between them. He’d spent less than half a day with the man and already he felt like Steve was getting too close for comfort.

Some soft, useless part of him wanted to keep Steve safe and it was nearly impossible to get it to shut up. He’d exhausted himself saving Rogers from one of those creatures. He needed to be smart and look out for himself.

* * *

 

**Steve**

_Johns: Why don't you shut up for two seconds and let me come up with a plan that doesn't involve mass suicide?_

“Heading out there with the dark already coming is a mistake, Rogers,” Johns said. Johns had a habit of repeating Steve's name in a way that made him sound like a salesman.

“I can't make you come with me,” Steve said. “Or any of you,” he told the group, “But if you come with me I'll try to keep you safe.”

“You're about to wander off into the desert with a murderer on a planet full of monsters,” Johns said. His teeth were neat and evenly spaced and now, up close, Steve could see they were veneers. “It's suicide,” Johns was saying. Steve kept staring at his teeth.

Steve tried to keep the argument going.

“The ship is useless without fuel,” Steve said, “If we don't get off this planet before those things come out of wherever they've been hiding then you won't need a pilot, you'll need a miracle.”

Barnes snorted. “No chance of that,” he said.

“Just because you do not believe in God, Mr Barnes,” the Imam interrupted, “Does not mean God does not believe in you–”

“You think someone could spend half their life getting six kinds of hell beat out of them and not believe?” Bucky asked. His voice was hard. Insistent.

The Imam took a step back.

“You think he could start out in a house with three baby sisters and bury them all and not believe in God?” Barnes said. His eyes were like stones above the blankness of his mask.

“You got it all wrong, holy man. I absolutely believe in God,” Barnes said, with terrible conviction, “And I absolutely hate the fucker.”

Steve shuddered. He was an only child but he remembered losing his mom.

“I'm not leaving you alone with this guy, Steve,” Johns said. “If you're going, I'm coming with you.”

“I'm going,” Steve said.

In the end, everyone went. They swept through the house and the shed, finding a kind of lighting rig made of tubes.

The light was fading fast and they all wanted to go as fast as possible but three of them were only children and it was impossible for them to keep up.

The eclipse came over faster than a sunset ever would have and soon enough Steve caught flickers of things moving on the horizon.

They reached the ship when things got truly dark. Steve could hear a jittery, high pitched sound. Barnes was staring at whatever Steve couldn't see and his mouth was a hard, thin line.

The cells in Steve's ship were in tact. Steve nearly wept to see them still sitting neat in their cases when the rest of the ship was scrap metal.

They dragged the heavy cells out onto the sand loaded them onto the rig with the lights. Steve saw something moving behind Sharon and she swung round instantly, brandishing her light like a weapon. The thing didn't get any closed.

“Let's get off this shit hole,” Johns said.

“For once, Johns, you've said something sensible,” Barnes said.

* * *

 

**Bucky**

_Abu al-Walid: They're afraid of our light. That means we don't have to be afraid of them._

Dragging the cradle of lights and fuel cells was awful. Bucky could see well enough, but the others couldn't and they kept stumbling on rocks and bones. They couldn't see, the way Bucky could, how small a circle of safety the lights were really providing. They couldn't see the aliens making swipes with their claws just inches away from the light.

Bucky liked the new plan well enough: get the cells onto the new ship and use the ship to get the fuck out of there. But the low swooping of the aliens and the small clutch of survivors that couldn’t carry their weight, leaving him and Steve to do most of the work, weren't helping.

And then there was the problem of what to do if they did all make it. None of them had any reason to hide that they’d seen him. Another bounty hunter could use that information. Or something worse than a bounty hunter. But that was a problem for later. The problem for now was getting the cells across the dunes.

There was a fizzing sound. Bucky's vision was worst around the tubes, which was almost ironic, but he managed to catch sight of Johns.

Johns was soaked in sweat, pale, jittery. Bucky had roomed with more drug addicts than not, and he could tell the guy was jonesing for a hit. His eyes and nose were leaking all over his face. Johns was brushing them with his sleeve, but it wasn't doing much.

Bucky heard the sound again and then Johns’ light went out.

This was the man who had caught him. This guy had torn him from his life, his home, his sisters. It seemed impossible. He looked sick and young.

“I know what you’re thinking Johns,” Bucky said, “why couldn't you just leave me the fuck alone?”

Johns visibly grit his teeth.

Visibly to Bucky, at least. Bucky smiled.

“Rogers!” Johns called.

Steve turned but he’d barely taken a step towards them before one of the aliens swept down out of the sky and took Johns with it. Bucky could see what they were doing to him. Bucky had half expected it to give him some satisfaction but if anything it was an anticlimax. Still on this hellhole rock. Still a wanted man.

There was another fizz. Jack’s light was jittering. Even in the dark he'd kept his glasses on. Bucky moved before he had time to think about it, dragging Jack over to him, wrapping his own light around the kid and sticking close.

“Thanks,” Jack said. His voice was less than a whisper.

“People, just a suggestion,” Paris said, “Perhaps you should flee!”

“The boys,” the Imam said.

Bucky watched as Steve grabbed Hassan’s arm.

“We go as fast as we can,” Steve said, dragging Hassan with him.

Sharon and Abu each held one of Suleiman’s hands. They set out at top speed, even Bucky was gasping for breath.

When the camp came into sight they gathered the last of their strength and sprinted, Bucky pulling Jack along so fast he was nearly carrying him and the fuel cells all at once.

They threw open the doors to the shed and Bucky caught sight of the alien just in time letting go of Jack and leaping at it in a burst of pure fury, grabbing the creature's head with his metal arm and dashing it to the floor.

They crowded into the ship, holding the lights over the ship as Steve fitted the cells.

“Shit!” Steve's voice was broken, it was halfway to a sob.

“What?” Bucky’s stomach lurched and he had to swallow down bile.

“We're one short,” Steve whispered. “I counted them all but it must have fallen out.”

“Christ,” Sharon said.

“I'll go,” Bucky heard himself say.

“You can’t,” Steve said.

“Yes I can. These eyes aren't just a party trick, I'm the only one who's going to spot them in the dark.”

“We'll all go,” Steve said.

“One of the lights already went out,” Bucky said, “I don't think we can chance it.”

“You can't carry the cells and fight those things,” Steve said. “Someone has to come with you.”

Bucky didn't see the point in talking him out of it. If Steve wanted to risk his neck that was on him.

* * *

 

**Steve**

_Paris P. Oglivie: I was supposed to die in France. I never ever saw France._

They left the rest of the survivors barricaded in the ship with the light. Steve grabbed hold of Bucky’s sleeve as they set out again, this time in total darkness. Steve kept blinking, expecting things to come into focus.

Steve would grab the cells and Bucky would fight the monsters. They couldn't run, no matter how much all of Steve's instincts screamed it him to. The cells could be anywhere.

Steve kept his head down. While the lights had driven the aliens back, moving along in the dark seemed to keep a lower profile. They didn’t speak but even then the creatures were almost silent, whispering past.

Steve only knew when something took an interest in them because Bucky would place both hands on Steve's shoulders, pushing him low to the ground. Then there'd be a noise, and sometimes yelling, and sometimes horrible squishing noises, and then it would be over, and Barnes would haul Steve back up to his feet, and they'd keep walking.

The pace was achingly slow, and so exhausting Steve felt he could barely move, but then Bucky stopped and didn't put his hands on Steve's shoulders.

There was a rustle, the hiss of sand against sand, and something was pressed into Steve's arms.

The thing weighed a ton and it was awkwardly shaped but Steve knew it at once.

“This is it!” Steve hissed.

Something shrieked, Steve ducked, Bucky cursed.

Bucky grabbed Steve by the front of his suit and dragged him. Something cold and wet dripped onto Steve's face and Steve thought it might be an alien mouth dripping down on him but in a second there was another drop, and another, and then it was raining.

Bucky hauled Steve up some kind of wall and Steve felt himself being pressed between two stones. He panicked, flailing, nearly dropping the cell, but Bucky was relentless, forcing him back and back and then he was through the gap and into a cave.

There was a loud scrape and Steve was terrified he'd been shut in until he felt Barnes lift the cell out of his arms and heard it scrape on the floor. Presumably Barnes had put it there.

There wasn't a lot of space. Steve could hear the rain hissing. He could hear Barnes breathing.

“They were everywhere,” Bucky said. “They heard the noise and they were everywhere.”

Steve wasn't sure what to say. He reached out, aiming to pat Bucky on the arm, but got his chest instead. He could feel Barnes’ heart under his palm, even through the suit.

“Where'd you get this anyway?” Steve asked, not taking his hand away.

“I bought it,” Bucky said.

“They don't sell them,” Steve said.

“They don't take money, Rogers,” Barnes said, his voice was a low rumble under Steve’s hand. “Doesn't mean they don't take other things.”

“Oh.” Steve felt himself blush.

And then Bucky tipped forward and his mouth was on Steve's.

* * *

 

**Bucky**

_Johns: What's to be afraid of? My life's just a steaming pile of meaningless shit anyhow. So I say, "Mush on."_

Outside the cave Bucky could hear the rain drumming against the walls but inside it was dry. Safe.

Steve’s hair was dry and full of sand. It crunched a little in Bucky’s fingers, like it was covered in gel, and Bucky couldn't help smiling into Steve's mouth. His skin was so caked in dust that kissing him was like licking a piece of chalk, and Bucky felt his whole body start shaking. He pulled away to look at Steve, who was gasping. His lips, his stupid dust-covered eyelashes, all of it. Bucky felt like his heart was testing the limits of his body, pushing right up against his ribs from the inside.

The scratch of Steve's beard on the corners of Bucky's lips was a kind of pleasurable torture. Bucky closed his eyes and Steve pushed him against the cave wall, pinning him there and biting at his lips.

Bucky felt like he'd been doused in cold water, he pushed Steve away, taking a slow breath.

“Hey,” Steve's eyes were wide, “you okay?”

“I don't do super well with-” Bucky coughed awkwardly. “With being held down?” He hated that his brain had turned it into a question. As if it wasn't abundantly obvious.

“I can do that, or, uh, not do that, I guess? Is there anything else you don't like?”

Bucky blew a long breath through his teeth.

“I don't always know when something will freak me out. It can be kind of a minefield.”

“How about you be in charge and I'll just do as I'm told? That work for you?”

Bucky smirked.

Steve was clearly embarrassed, but he wasn't backing down.

“Okay,” Bucky said, “we can do that.”

“Where do you want me?”

“Let's swap,” Bucky said, turning the two of them so that Steve was the one pushed against the wall.

Steve smiled a little, and seemed very happy to be there, pressing a kiss to Bucky's cheek and then his mouth. Bucky could feel that Steve was trembling a little; when Bucky bit Steve’s lip he made a soft noise and Bucky could feel Steve's hand slipping down between them to palm his own dick.

Bucky debated the merits of getting out of their Stillsuits (getting to grope Steve's stupid chest) versus the ridiculous effort it would take to get the damn things off and decided not to bother. Besides, neither of them had bathed since arriving on this godforsaken rock and Stillsuits tended to trap smells as well as water.

“Get on your knees,” Bucky said, cradling Steve's head with his metal hand and pushing a little, guiding him till he was kneeling on the floor.

Steve grinned up at him. Bucky ran his hand through Steve's hair, trying and failing not to grin back and knowing that Steve probably couldn't see it in the dark anyway. Bucky could not believe this idiot.

Bucky reached for the zip on his crotch.

“Do not,” Bucky said firmly, “get sand on my dick.”

Steve gave an earnest nod.

“Get sand on my dick and I will be royally pissed off,” Bucky said.

“I swear,” Steve said, “no sand.”

“Okay.”

Bucky eased the zipper down and Steve crept forward, looking a little desperate, mouth already open. Bucky pulled himself out of his suit and Steve’s hands twitched at his sides. Bucky could feel Steve's breath on his skin.

“Suck,” Bucky said.

Steve pressed forward in an instant, almost choking himself, getting the head of Bucky's dick right up against the back of his throat. His fists clenched at his sides and he gave a full body shudder.

“You can touch me, just stay away from my ass,” Bucky said.

Steve’s hands went straight to Bucky's thighs, leaving an acceptable buffer space so Bucky wouldn't worry about them roaming. Steve's mouth was so soft and wet and warm that Bucky almost couldn't bear it, had to stop himself from pulling back out. Bucky could count on one hand the number of guys who had done this for him, and Steve was the only one who seemed to be enjoying it.

Bucky's metal hand wrapped around the back of Steve's head and pulled him closer. Steve moaned and Bucky could feel Steve's throat spasm in convulsive little swallows right against the head of his dick. Bucky eased himself out of Steve's mouth and thrust back in, feeling the smooth glide of Steve's lips from tip to base. He thrust again. Steve made a desperate noise around Bucky's dick and Bucky felt one of Steve's hands let go of him, heard the unmistakable sound of a zipper opening.

“You like it when I fuck your throat,” Bucky said. He'd been aiming for dirty talk but he couldn't keep the awe out of his voice.

Steve looked up at him, his eyes crinkled up at the edges in a smile. He looked blissed out on it, like nothing in the world felt better than Bucky’s cock in his mouth. Bucky didn't know what to do with that. His non-metal hand traced the smile lines with his fingers. He ran his thumb over Steve's lips, spread wide, dark as blood and slick with spit.

“Good,” Bucky said. He thrust a little harder and felt Steve push back just as hard. “Fuck that's good.”

Bucky fucked into Steve's mouth. He could hear the rustle of Steve's suit and the slick sounds as Steve jerked himself off, speeding up whenever Bucky thrust particularly fast. It must hurt, Bucky thought. Steve must like that it hurt.

The realisation pushed all of Bucky’s buttons, including one or two he hadn't known he had, and he came in almost total silence - only a sharp hiss of breath. Steve swallowed it all down and tucked Bucky’s dick back inside his suit looking for all the world as if he hadn't just grabbed hold of Bucky’s heart and tugged.

Bucky watched Steve touch himself, the head of his prick pushing up through his fist, dripping over his fingers.

When Bucky thought about sex, he thought about himself, about what might make him feel good. But looking at Steve filled him with a new kind of hunger: he wanted to make Steve lose it, to be the thing that pushed him over the edge.

“Stop,” Bucky said. Steve whined a little but stopped moving his hand. “Perfect, you're doing great. How about you get up a little, let me return the favour?”

Steve scrambled to his feet, eyes a little wild, staring at Bucky with a kind of fierce intensity.

“Yeah, that's great, you're perfect,” Bucky said, getting to his knees. “It's probably a bad idea to try and grab at me though, you okay to keep your hands to yourself?”

Steve swallowed. “Yeah,” he said, his voice came out croaky.

“Don't need to touch anyway,” Bucky said, “I got you.”

Steve’s cock twitched against his stomach and a bead of precum rolled out of his slit and dripped onto the dusty floor. Bucky caught the next drop with his tongue, teasing right over the head and tasting the salt.

“That's right,” Bucky told Steve. “You're doing so well for me.”

Bucky pressed his face into Steve's hip, letting him feel the smile against his skin.

Then he got to work in earnest opening his mouth wide and letting his throat go slack, keeping the angle just right. He'd done enough of these, but this was the first one that was fun to give. To Bucky's modified eyes Steve glowed, his whole body alive with pleasure.

And the noises. Steve's high, sharp breaths when Bucky tugged his zipper down a little more and ran his thumb over Steve's balls. The low groan when Bucky flexed his throat with Steve's dick pressing just into it.

Bucky pinned Steve's hips against the cave wall and sucked him, working up and down the shaft, lips stretched, feeling desperate suddenly. Feeling out of his mind, shivering, cracked all the way open by his need to make Steve come, to feel it happen, to be the thing that brought Steve pleasure.

And Steve was being so good: keeping his hands to himself, making more of those pretty sounds. Bucky had so many hang-ups around guys, so many worries and fears and chasing thoughts, that it had never seemed worth it. But Steve was trying so hard to make it good for him, had worked with what Bucky was happy with, and it was one of the most powerful things to have this guy at his mercy. To be merciful.

Steve made a noise like he was hurting when he came and Bucky swallowed everything.

Then he stood up, kissing Steve fierce and hard - making Steve taste himself in Bucky's mouth.

Steve placed a warm kiss on Bucky's cheek and two of them rested a moment, Bucky studying Steve’s face in the dark.

He'd been trapped before. First in the foster home, separated from his sisters, then juvie and low-level prison colonies. Then the supermax.

He'd managed to get out of all of them, either by being smart or by doing the time. Hell, technically he'd even got away from Johns. It wasn't how he'd have planned it, but he was free. He wasn't going back to supermax. He might die on this hideous rock but he wasn't going to do it in a cave. He was going to try and get them out.

Bucky grabbed Steve's face in both hands and drew their foreheads together.

“Maybe those things have lost interest,” Steve said. He couldn't hear much through the cave wall.

“I'm going to save you,” Bucky said. Steve pressed a hard, closed-mouthed kiss to Bucky's lips.

* * *

 

**Steve**

_Caroline: Now, you! You listen to me! I am the captain of this ship. And I am not leaving anyone on this rock with those fucking things!_

They didn't say anything else, breathing hard. They rolled away the stone at the mouth of the cave and stepped out into the rain.

It was a mad dash to the ship, Steve cradling the fuel cell in his arms like a newborn, letting Bucky guide him off the rocks and, keeping his head low.

When Steve saw light he almost couldn't breathe. It hadn't gone out.

They reached the ship just in time. The light tubes were all flickering. Eventually Bucky, Sharon and Paris had to stand Steve and the children, guarding them as Steve put the final cell in its place and wired it in.

The ship hummed softly and then the lights came on all at once and Steve could see for miles in the light of its beams, the sky alive with them, the ground crawling.

Steve glanced over at Bucky, who must have been seeing it all along, but he was shielding his eyes, pulling his dark welding goggles over his mask.

Steve smiled at him. Bucky grinned back; his lips were faintly bruised where Steve had bitten them.

Steve flicked a bank of switches, pulled down a lever, and they were free.


End file.
